“Krishna and Radha (Primary Title)”~ Though early textual sources make only brief mention of a favorite gopi, later devotional literature overflows with accounts of Krishna’s adored Radha. Their love began when they were young children and later erupted into a highly charged passionate affair. Metaphorically, their frequent trysts in the forest reference the soul’s (Radha’s) ardent desire for union with God (Krishna).https://www.vmfa.museum/piction/6027262-79572376/

“Krishna and Radha under a Tree in a Storm”~ This painting depicts the Hindu god Krishna sitting beneath a tree while his beloved, Radha, runs to join him, seeking shelter from an impending storm…Krishna’s love affair with Radha is used as an analogy for the relationship between God and devotee: deeply satisfying but not without its challenges. Here, Radha turns to Krishna for comfort in much the same way a devotee would turn to God.https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/96785

“Radha and Krishna Dressed in Each Other’s Clothes”~ This unique visual motif of the clothing exchange serves as a metaphor for Radha and Krishna’s shared essence. Radha’s and Krishna’s donning of each other’s garments signifies that the two are identical.https://archive.asia.si.edu/devi/fulldevi/deviCat80.htm

Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude were a married couple who created environmental works of art. Christo and Jeanne-Claude were born on the same day, June 13, 1935; Christo in Gabrovo, Bulgaria, and Jeanne-Claude in Morocco. They first met in Paris in October 1958 when Christo painted a portrait of Jeanne-Claude’s mother.Their works include the wrapping of the Reichstag in Berlin and the Pont-Neuf bridge in Paris, the 24-mile (39 km)-long artwork called Running Fence in Sonoma and Marin counties in California, and The Gates in New York City’s Central Park.Jeanne-Claude died, aged 74, on November 18, 2009, from complications of a brain aneurysm. ~Wikipedia

The couple emigrated from Paris to New York in 1964. “We immediately loved New York,” Jeanne-Claude said. “As we were standing on the prow of the SS France, suddenly there it was in front of us. And Christo took me in his arms and said, ‘Do you like it? I love it! I give it to you, it’s all yours!'” (He proposed, but never got permission, to wrap several skyscrapers.)Their relationship lasted 51 years, and they did everything together, Jeanne-Claude said, except three things: “We never fly on the same airplane… I do not draw. Christo is the one who puts on paper our ideas… And I have always deprived him of the joy of working with our accountant.” ~The Guardian

Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) documented the change on the homefront, especially among ethnic groups and workers uprooted by the war. Three months after Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the relocation of Japanese-Americans into armed camps in the West. Soon after, the War Relocation Authority hired Lange to photograph Japanese neighborhoods, processing centers, and camp facilities.

Lange’s earlier work documenting displaced farm families and migrant workers during the Great Depression did not prepare her for the disturbing racial and civil rights issues raised by the Japanese internment. Lange quickly found herself at odds with her employer and her subjects’ persecutors, the United States government.

To capture the spirit of the camps, Lange created images that frequently juxtapose signs of human courage and dignity with physical evidence of the indignities of incarceration. Not surprisingly, many of Lange’s photographs were censored by the federal government, itself conflicted by the existence of the camps.

The true impact of Lange’s work was not felt until 1972, when the Whitney Museum incorporated twenty-seven of her photographs into Executive Order 9066, an exhibit about the Japanese internment. New York Times critic A.D. Coleman called Lange’s photographs “documents of such a high order that they convey the feelings of the victims as well as the facts of the crime.”http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/wcf/wcf0013.html

During World War I, Liberty Gardens (and later, Victory Gardens) grew out of the government’s efforts to encourage home gardening among Americans, both to express their patriotism and to aid the war effort by freeing up food production for soldiers.

Americans were encouraged to grow their own to ensure everyone at home had enough to eat…There were 20 million gardens everywhere from rooftops and empty lots to backyards and schoolyards. 40% of produce, which made over 1 million tons, consumed in America was grown in victory gardens. People learned how to can and preserve so the harvests lasted all year.

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It should be emphasized that marriage itself in this period was chaotic, without uniform boundaries or legal consistency. The scholars Silvana Seidel Menchi and Diego Quaglioni, who directed an impressive research project carried out through investigation of documents involving matrimony litigation housed in the ecclesiastical archives of Italy, provide startling information demonstrating just how informal the act of marriage could be and how it could take place in almost any location. “People got married in stables or in a tavern, in the kitchen or in the vegetable garden, in the pasture or in the attic, in a wood or in a blacksmith’s shop, under the portico of one’s house or near the public fountain.” This suggests that many weddings were extraordinarily spontaneous, and the fact that why often took place on a balcony or at a window bears this out: “With the assistance of a ladder, the groom, flanked by witnesses, reached the bride, and facing each other they pronounced the formula of the ritual, balanced in an equilibrium as unstable as the tie that thus bound them.” Indeed, before the edicts of The Council of Trent systematized the requirements of a proper wedding in 1563, only mutual consent was an absolute necessity for marriage. People did not need to be married in church or by priests; they did not need to post banns or to appear before a notary; they did not need to exchange rings nor were witnesses required (although most weddings were public acts). Clandestine marriages, undertaken to outwit disapproving parents, were common.Art and Love in Renaissance Italy / MetPublications / The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ernest Baker, born in 1889 in Rhode Island, was a self-taught illustrator. Most of his works were covers for Time magazine, although he was responsible for eleven covers for Fortune magazine between 1929 and 1941.

In December of 1949, Winston Churchill was chosen by Time magazine as the “Man of the Half-Century”, celebrated in a 16-page supplement which was contained in the January 2nd issue of 1950. Bakerdid the cover illustration for that issue.

Describing Mr Churchill as “the man of the half -century,” Time magazine says: “No man’s history can sum up the dreadful, wonderful years 1900-50. Mr Churchill’s story comes closest …. Sometimes wrong, often right, he fought his way toward the heart of every storm.”https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/22801530

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There are links embedded throughout this blog: they may be in names, titles, locations, images, and/or text. Please mouse around to locate these links. I hope you enjoy learning more about the artists, artwork, musicians, and other information featured here.Maiss Auras by John Lavery, c.1900